The explorers slept soundly all night in the chief's lodge, feeling as safe as among Christian Indians of the north, who stuck thorns in a calendar to mark Sundays and holy days. Next morning the chief went with several hundred of his people to escort them to their canoes; but it was three o'clock in the afternoon before the voyageurs, dropping down stream, saw the last of the friendly tribe. Day after day the boats moved on without meeting other inhabitants. Mulberries, persimmons, and hazelnuts were found on the shores. They passed the mouth of the Illinois River without knowing its name, or that it flowed through lands owned by the tribe that had given them the peace-pipe. Farther on, the Mississippi made one of its many bends, carrying them awhile directly eastward, and below great rocks like castles. As the canoes ran along the foot of this east shore, some of the voyageurs cried out. For on the face of the cliff far up were two painted monsters in glaring red, green, and black; each as large as a calf, with deer horns, blood-colored eyes, tiger beard, a human face, and a body covered with scales. Coiled twice around the middle, over the head, and passing between the hind legs of each, extended a tail that ended like a fish. So startling was this sight, which seemed a banner held aloft heralding unseen dangers, that the men felt threatened by a demon. But Marquette laughed at them and beckoned for the canoes to be brought together. "What manner of thing is this, Sieur Jolliet?" "A pair of manitous, evidently. If we had Indians with us, we should see them toss a little tobacco out as an offering in passing by." "I cannot think," said Marquette, "that any Indian has been the designer. Good painters in France would find it hard to do as well. Besides this, the creatures are so high upon the rock that it was hard to get conveniently at them to paint them. And how could such colors be mixed in this wilderness?" "We have seen what pigments and clays the Illinois used in daubing themselves. These wild tribes may have among them men with natural skill in delineating," said Jolliet. "I will draw them off," Marquette determined, bringing out the papers on which he set down his notes; and while the men stuck their paddles in the water to hold the canoes against the current, he made his drawing. One of the monsters seen by the explorers remained on those rocks until the middle of our own century. It was called by the Indians the Piasa. More than two centuries of beating winter storms had not effaced the brilliant picture when it was quarried away by a stupidly barbarous civilization. The town of Alton, in the state of Illinois, is a little south of that rock where the Piasa dragons were seen. As the explorers moved ahead on glassy waters, they looked back, and the line of vision changing, they saw that the figures were cut into the cliff and painted in hollow relief.